This article was downloaded by: [Tufts University]On: 08 October 2014, At: 01:48Publisher: RoutledgeInforma Ltd Registered in England and Wales Registered Number: 1072954Registered office: Mortimer House, 37-41 Mortimer Street, London W1T 3JH,UK

Journal of Latinos andEducationPublication details, including instructions forauthors and subscription information:http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/hjle20

A Teacher's Journey in WorkingWith English Language LearnersWith and Without DisabilitiesRocío Delgado aa Department of Education , Trinity UniversityPublished online: 12 Oct 2010.

To cite this article: Rocío Delgado (2010) A Teacher's Journey in Working With EnglishLanguage Learners With and Without Disabilities, Journal of Latinos and Education,9:4, 344-348, DOI: 10.1080/15348431.2010.491056

To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/15348431.2010.491056

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A Teacher’s Journey in WorkingWith English Language Learners

With and Without Disabilities

Rocío DelgadoDepartment of Education

Trinity University

This piece presents a teacher’s reflections on her experiences working with LatinoEnglish language learners with and without disabilities. The author’s voice narratesher journey as a teacher, researcher, and teacher educator preparing professionals towork with bilingual populations. The beliefs and factors she identifies as influencingher practice are also presented, as are the challenges she encountered in providingsupports for students with limited English proficiency and identified disabilities.

Key words: English language learners, teacher reflectivity, bilingual special educa-tion, teacher beliefs, teacher ideologies

In the following paragraphs, I explain how I always wanted to be a teacher. It wasmy parents’ advice, the transnational experiences I lived, and my professionalpreparation that contributed to forming my ideology about how Latino Englishlanguage learners (ELLs) should be educated and thus provided the lens that Ibrought into teaching ELLs in my own classroom.

JOURNAL OF LATINOS AND EDUCATION, 9(4), 344–348Copyright © 2010 Taylor & Francis Group, LLCISSN: 1534-8431 print / 1532-771X onlineDOI: 10.1080/15348431.2010.491056

Correspondence should be addressed to Rocío Delgado, Trinity University, One Trinity Place, SanAntonio, TX 78212. E-mail: rocio.delgado@trinity.edu

Hay un poema que dice:La vida quiso hacerme sembradora de

la hermosa simiente del saber;en el rincón humilde de mi escuela

cumplo a diario y feliz con mi deber.

There is no direct translation for thepoem I used to start the Spanish versionof this section. However, the gist of it isthat people sometimes become teachersto dutifully and lovingly fulfill their roles

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A TEACHER’S JOURNEY 345

Se ha hecho común el que mepregunten de dónde soy, pues en muchasocasiones yo misma he sentido nopertenecer al lugar en que me encuentro.Soy Estadounidense por nacimiento, peroMexicana de corazón. Sobre todo soyfronteriza; siempre navegando entremundos diferentes y formas de pensarque jamás pensé cuestionar. Como indicala estrofa inicial, mi sueño siempre fue elser maestra. Nunca imaginé qué tan lejosme llevaría mi deseo de trabajar por losniños; tampoco creí que trabajaría másallá de las paredes de mi salón. Hubieraquerido permanecer en México, pero elhecho de haber nacido “en el otro lado”incrementaba mis oportunidades deestudiar y mejorar. Mis padres, unmédico cirujano y una químicafarmacobióloga, siempre supieron quemis hermanas y yo también iríamos a laUniversidad. Está de más decir quecrecimos rodeadas de privilegios. Sinembargo, mis padres siempre nosenseñaron a ser agradecidas por lo queteníamos y a ayudar a los demás. Através de nuestras conversaciones, mipapá me ayudó a desarrollar concienciade las enormes desigualdades sociales,políticas y económicas que existen en elmundo; yo creía entender a lo que él serefería. Grande sería mi sorpresa aldarme cuenta que al venir yo a losEstados Unidos a la edad de 20 años, meconvertiría en alguien que trataría deluchar para cambiar las situaciones dedesigualdad de las que mi papá siemprehabló. Mis circunstancias y experienciasen este país me mostraron aún otromundo, el mundo de mis niños, mi gente,mi raza oprimida por un sistema que noentiende su valor.

Al entrar a la Universidad, pensé enhacerme maestra bilingüe porquedominaba el Español y el Inglés. Elrecordar cómo mis compañeros que veníana los Estados Unidos terminaban en clasesde educación especial por no hablar elInglés, me hizo reconsiderar mis opciones.Decidí hacerme maestra de educación

in the classroom. Next I explain my ownjourney in becoming a teacher.

It has become common for people toask about my place of origin. I myselfhave many times felt I do not belong toany place to which I go. I am a U.S.citizen by birth but I grew up in Mexico.Above all, I am fronteriza (from theborder), always navigating betweenworlds and ways of thinking I neverimagined questioning. As indicated in theopening verse, becoming a teacher wasalways my dream. I never imagined howfar my desire to touch children’s liveswould take me, nor did I ever envisionmyself working beyond the walls of myclassroom. I would have liked to havestayed in Mexico, but having been born“on the other side” gave me the privilegeto study in the United States. Both of myparents have college degrees. My dad is aphysician and my mother is a medicaltechnologist. Thus, they were certain that,like them, my sisters and I would alsoattend college. We were very privileged.My parents taught us to be grateful forwhat we had and to help others. It wasthrough our late night conversations thatmy father helped me become aware ofthe social, political, and economicinequities in the world. I always thought Iunderstood what he meant. It was notuntil I came to the United States at age 20that I realized I could become someonewho would fight and try to change someof those inequities my father haddescribed in years past. Mycircumstances and experiences in thiscountry have shown me yet anotherworld, the world of my children, mypeople, and my raza (race), oppressed bya system that does not understand theirworth.

When I began college, I thought ofbecoming a bilingual teacher because Ispoke English and Spanish. Nevertheless,witnessing some of my classmates’placements in special education aftercoming to the United States because oftheir “inability” to speak English made

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The teacher greeted Pablo as he entered the classroom. It was my first day ofstudent teaching in Mrs. Pilz’s class and, although my placement was in a schoolwith a high Latino enrollment, I had noticed that few Latino ELLs had come intothe special education setting where I taught. “There are no LD [learning disabili-ties] in Spanish,” joked Mrs. Pilz when questioned. However, knowing that Ispoke Spanish, she allowed me to work with Pablo so that I could “find out whatwas wrong with him.” I planned special individualized reading instruction forPablo just as I had learned in my special education courses, but he continued tostruggle. Because I had also taken bilingual education courses at the university, Iasked my cooperating teacher whether I could implement some of the strategiesand materials that I had learned worked well with Latino ELLs. Another remarkwas made about how Mrs. Pilz did not get into “that bilingual stuff.” Besides, itwas my mentor’s belief that whatever I did would not work because Pablo had LDand spoke Spanish. However, because she did not know “what else to do withhim,” Mrs. Pilz agreed to have me teach him in Spanish. Lessons for Pablo incor-porated what I had learned in both special education and bilingual educationcourses. Pablo’s reading skills began to improve.

I completed my student teaching and graduated. However, I did not feel pre-pared for working with students who, like Pablo, were ELLs with LD. Some timelater, I stood in the pecan orchard that was close to the school where I wouldteach bilingual special education for the next 3 years. I watched the trees’ trem-bling ramitas (small branches) as I talked to mi mamá (my mom) about mydoubts and fears of starting my teaching career. She said that, like the pecantrees, the fruits we yield are influenced by the nutrients provided and the firm-ness of the soil in which we are planted. Just as pecan trees are considered bymany to be one of the most valuable North American nut species, teaching La-tino ELLs with LD and giving them el suelo firme y nutrientes para crecer (firmsoil and nutrients to grow) has always been of the utmost importance to me. TheNative American origin of the word pecan translates to “all nuts requiring a stoneto crack.” As a novice Latina bilingual teacher who was committed to the educa-tion of students with disabilities, I saw myself as the stone that would help bilin-gual special education students “crack the code” and succeed in becoming “liter-ate.” Little did I realize the wealth of knowledge, literary experiences, and

346 DELGADO

especial para así utilizar mi Español eidentificar a los estudiantes queequivocadamente recibían servicios deremediación. Así transcurrieron mis añosen la Universidad hasta que se llegó elmomento de hacer mi internado comomaestra. La siguiente historia muestrauna de mis experiencias durante estaépoca.

me reconsider my career options. Instead,I decided to become a special educationteacher so that I could use my Spanish toidentify students who were erroneouslyreceiving remediation services. Yearswent by at the university until it was timeto complete my student teaching. Thefollowing story illustrates one of myexperiences during this time.

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excellent educación (education) my students already brought with them intoour class.

As my teaching journey continued to evolve, I learned about the lives of misniños, mi gente, mi raza (my children, my people, my race). I began to incorporatefamilies’ funds of knowledge into my teaching and active learning into the com-munity (González et al., 1997; Moll, Amanti, Neff, & González, 1992; Vélez-Ibáñez & Greenberg, 1992). These instructional approaches and other strategiesand methodologies used in my classroom were never questioned because, similarto my student teaching experience, I taught children in need of bilingual specialeducation services—students with whom teachers did not know how to work. As Iengaged in what I thought of as “creative ways of teaching” (i.e., funds of knowl-edge), my definition of literacy began to change. At first I had focused on makingsure that students in my class improved reading fluency and comprehension asstated in their individualized education plans. It was during conversations withother teachers that I started noticing and questioning the inequities that existed inthe education of our ELLs with or without disabilities. It became apparent to methat in order for students to succeed in academics and life, it was critical for them toengage in reading the word and the world (Freire & Macedo, 1987).

I began to see mi vocación de maestra (my job as a teacher) as involving thesearching of avenues for empowering my students and families. I wanted my La-tino children to succeed in more than just reading and writing, but I was not surehow to make this happen. Research studies have identified many factors as to whyour children were not succeeding in schools. However, as I later traveled fromschool to school, I did not see any of the practices discussed in academic journalsbeing played out in individual classrooms. I believe most of the teachers in theclassrooms I visit truly care about their children. Some of their raíces (roots), de-veloped through professional preparation and personal beliefs, may be strongerthan others. However, similar to pecan trees, teachers remain standing after itsnows on them year after year. Algunas de las nevadas (some of the snow-ins) arestronger than others, but the tree’s roots are still alive and reflorecen (continue tobloom) the next year. However, one must acknowledge that the weight of the icemay sometimes break the tree. For example, the burdens that the educational sys-tem places on teachers can be as oppressive as ice, not only to teachers but to thesame students the system is supposed to help succeed. Many teachers, includingmyself, who in one way or another have tried not to conform to a system that doesnot always recognize the needs of the same children it purports to serve may end upconforming to the system itself.

A TEACHER’S JOURNEY 347

Hay una canción que dice que “escribirun poema es fácil cuando hay unmotivo.” Involucrarme en el procesode investigación acerca de la

The lyrics of a song say that “to write apoem is an easy task when there is amotive.” Immersing myself in the processof conducting research about the

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REFERENCES

Freire, P., & Macedo, D. P. (1987). Literacy: Reading the word and the world. South Hadley, MA:Bergin & Garvey.

González, N., Moll, L. C., Tenery, M. F., Rivera, A., Rendón, P., & Gonzáles, R. (1997). Funds ofknowledge for teaching in Latino households. Urban Education, 29, 443–470.

Moll, L. C., Amanti, C., Neff, D., & González, N. (1992). Funds of knowledge for teaching: Using aqualitative approach. Theory Into Practice, 31(2), 132–141.

Vélez-Ibáñez, C., & Greenberg, C. (1992). Formation and transformation of funds of knowledgeamong U.S. Mexican households. Anthropology & Education Quarterly, 23, 313–335.

348 DELGADO

educación de niños bilingües con o sindiscapacidades no ha sido fácil. Sinembargo los motivos que me llevaron aemprender el viaje siguen conmigo acada momento, empujándome a seguiradelante. Además de las sonrisas ytiempos felices que pasé enseñando a misniños, recuerdo el enojo que sentía alenfrentar la realidad de que se lesdiscriminaba día con día. Yo losexhortaba a seguir adelante y nuncadejarse aplastar por nadie. El recuerdode estas conversaciones con misestudiantes me ayudó a levantarme enmuchas ocasiones cuando estuve a puntode darme por vencida. Pues bien, micarrera como maestra y profesorauniversitaria no es precisamente unpoema; pero sí una manera dereflexionar acerca de un tema que meapasiona. Conforme continúo mi caminoen esta área, espero tratar de entendercómo es posible que perdamos a cientosde niños Latinos en un sistema que luchapor entender cómo servirlos mejor.Quiero entender a los valientes maestrosque diario se enfrentan con la realidadde sacar adelante a nuestros niños;nuestro futuro.

Sin embargo estoy consciente de queen el intento de mejorar mi entendimientodebo reconocer todas las nocionespreconcebidas que traigo a este procesoy cómo quizá éstas mismas han podidoinfluenciar mi manera de ver einterpretar las cosas.

education of bilingual children with andwithout disabilities has not been easy.However, the reasons that led me tobegin this journey continue to encourageme to pursue my personal andprofessional endeavors. In addition to themany hours I spent teaching my children,I remember the anger I felt when Irealized the discrimination theyconfronted on a daily basis. Icontinuously exhorted them to go on andto never let others make them feelinferior. It was the thought of theseconversations with my students that keptme going when I, too, felt like giving up.My career as a school teacher anduniversity professor is not precisely apoem. However, it has been anopportunity to reflect on a topic aboutwhich I am passionate. As I continue myjourney in this area, I hope I get to betterunderstand how it is possible that we loseso many Latino students in a system thatstruggles to understand how to providethem with better services. I want tounderstand and to learn from the braveteachers who face the daily realities ofeducating our children, our future.

I am cognizant of the preconceivednotions I bring to the process of trying tounderstand the education of Latinochildren. I strive to continue examiningthese notions as they continue toinfluence the lens through which Iexamine my work.

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